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High-fashion designers are becoming eco-conscious. But what the heck does that mean?

Friday Nov 02, 2007.     By Sharon Hoyer

Lifestyle Feed

Thank heavens for Justin Timberlake. He brought sexy back just in time for Al Gore to paint it green. In a few short years, the state of the environment has gone—at least according to the mainstream media—from a fanatical hippie cause to a fashionable social and political issue. Never has there been a better time to be eco-smart, eco-friendly and eco-hip. And now that the New York Times Magazine has dedicated an eight-page photo spread called "The Others" to eco-minded haute-couture designers, green appears to have made a near miraculous pole-vault from an unpleasant dinner topic to the billboard realms of desire.

Don't get me wrong; the birth of eco-glamour could be a very good thing. Until recently, the garment industry has enjoyed a complex and near-invisible relationship with the natural resources it relies on. We're not often more than three or four degrees of separation from the origins of our citrus fruits or Angus beef, but the ground that germinated the cotton bolls now stitched across our butts is a bit more obscure. A few years back American attention turned from the name and price on clothing labels to the sweatshops attaching them; now concerned activists are turning the lens on the raw materials going into them.

The problem with cotton
Cotton is a highly thirsty, insect-sensitive plant, largely cultivated in developing countries. According to the World Wildlife Federation, cotton comprises nearly half of the world's textile production and requires more pesticides to flourish than any other crop. It takes about 5,000 gallons of water to grow enough cotton for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Unregulated cotton farming has resulted in gross child labor and human rights violations in Uzbekistan, widespread pesticide poisoning of farmers, particularly in India, and the draining of the Aral Sea for crop irrigation.

What remains uncertain is exactly how to green-up cotton agriculture while meeting the world's demand for the fiber, which has nearly doubled (keeping pace with the world's population) in the last 30 years. According to the International Cotton Advisory Committee, "organic" is still a nebulous term as applied to cotton: Several companies certify organic cotton, each with their own set of standards. Organic cotton cultivation—usually of genetically modified strains—is such a new practice that it's too early to determine the environmental, social and economic impacts for good or ill. The Better Cotton Initiative is a new organization dedicated to opening a dialogue with cotton industry workers at every level of the supply chain, in an effort to define just what better cotton is. The discussion is a global one and will, at BCI's admission, take years to yield results in the mass market. So, do we all have to stick to polyester in the meantime?

Bamboo: not just for pandas anymore
Enter bamboo. It grows quickly, and it's pest-resistant, biodegradable, anti-bacterial and moisture-wicking. And, contrary to what you'd expect from a reedy plant, it feels like an ultra-soft blend of cotton and silk, oft compared to cashmere. Once relegated to yoga wear racks, bamboo is increasingly used on the runway by ecologically conscious designers. Pivot Boutique in Fulton Market exclusively carries eco-smart clothing made from bamboo, as well as hemp, organic cotton and wool, lempur and recycled materials. The racks in Pivot are on par in stylishness and price with any other specialty boutique in the city. Owner Jessa Brinkmeyer wants customers to be impressed with the design of the clothes first and foremost, thereby proving that eco-smarts don't have to come at the cost of style.

A final note: salt lightly
The fashion industry should be applauded for and encouraged in their ecologically conscious efforts. However, for us green-wary consumers, the quasi-antonymic words "sustainability" and "fashion" imply a hazy compromise that should be approached with caution. It's difficult to talk at length about high fashion and conservation without getting into a lot of sticky moral questions about needs versus wants, eco-conscious market demand versus non-consumption and the nature of capitalism itself. Ultimately, what (and how much) we buy is a personal decision and one that should be dictated—for those who have the luxury—by more than scales of acquisitiveness and income.

What those scales might be is just now coming into focus in the fashion industry; even Nordstrom's will donate two of the $82 for its Eco Chic organic cotton tee to Healthy Child, Healthy World. We may be at the dawn of a golden age of environmental consciousness. We may also be in the midst of a conscience-stroking fad. We'll know for sure when those eco-minded designers go from being one of The Others to one of us.

It took a move from the regimented lawnscapes of the suburbs to the congestion of a major metropolis for Sharon to look twice at what she puts in the trash, down the sink and into her own body. She reports fortnightly on her endeavors to change "greening" from calculated deviation to a practicable way of life. You can contact her here.